


Doomsday at Wobegon

by murg



Category: Original Work
Genre: Ableism, Apocalypse, Emotional Repression, Gen, Obscure Cultural References, Philosophy, Slurs, american humor, gynophobia, mystical upstate new york, snarky comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2014-02-05
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:13:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murg/pseuds/murg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world is ending. Harrison Harrington decides to splurge and buy 2% milk. He returns home to find his plans for the night in need of some serious reworking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doomsday at Wobegon

Doomsday at Wobegon

 

 

The world ends today. The year is 2044 and the people have met their God. It was not a satisfactory exchange.  

The news stations give a multitude of reasons to remain calm, with their scientists and their scripts and their forecasts and their statistics. Everybody else has a name for it, though. While the most popular as of most recent survey is "Doomsday"--which isn't quite accurate, since this whole world ending business is actually quite a long process that's been going on for as long as there's been a world to end--a few frontrunners include: Judgement Day, the Rapture, and the Apocalypse. Religious in connotation, surely, but no less accurate than Doomsday.  

Plenty of people think their God has made a split second decision to wipe them out. This is simply not true. What would some alien entity want from some minuscule populace on one dying, magnetic hunk hurling through space, let alone care enough to hold animosity against it? 

Harrison Harrington has little to no opinion on the state of affairs. He's on his way to the corner market to buy milk.  

Ever since Doomsday was announced (March 2nd, 2044) and scheduled for May 31st, 2044, people have been scrambling to find some semblance of meaning in their miserable, Kafka-esque lives. Being humans, this, naturally, involved breaking several societal codes, laws, and harming other humans. 

By the standard of history, this case has been _comme ci comme ça_.  

Wobegon, population one thousand one hundred, and home to two corner markets, had to be affected by these developments at some point. And it was. …Only slowly. Things always happen slower in rural towns. Fads, music, technology. It all happens slower. For example, the people of Wobegon first got reliable internet access and cellphone service in 2023, shortly before Harrison was born.  

Of the two corner markets of Wobegon, one has been labelled as forsaken to the feral people. Of course, these people aren't truly feral. One can't simply go feral in a few months. They like to think they did, however, which is just as dangerous. The other one's been abandoned, for the most part. People took what they wanted from it and they split. Most have left Wobegon, which is understandable. Nobody wants to die in a no-name shit-stain American mill town like Wobegon.  

Harrison Harrington, being one of the few relatively sane individuals to stay in Wobegon, coupled with his utter lack of concern for anything happening around him, finds the abandoned store to be ripe for the picking.  

While contemplating the souring milk aisle, Harrison finds it strange that he's only ever drunk skim milk all his life. Since he is aware today is the Doomsday that everyone's been throwing such a fuss about, he selects a two-percent and smells it carefully before retreating back into the aisles of bagged, preservative-heavy chips.  

Some people smashed all the windows in his house. Killed his mother with a ridiculously precise brick toss to the head. That was a tremendous bummer. He only has to get enough food for himself and his new pet donkey, Jack, who escaped from the Jones's farm. The Joneses chose Jack's name because he was quite literally a jackass, which makes sense. The other donkey, appropriately named Jenny, perished in the riots that rocked the edges of town.  

Harrison thinks about getting Jack an extra special treat. He must be lonely, without his ass girlfriend. (Is it okay to call donkeys asses? Maybe in the apocalypse.) After much deliberation, he picks up a large bag of Cracker Jacks and heads for the register, where he drops off seven dollars and fifty-eight cents before making his way for one of the many improvised exits to the store.  

He chooses the smashed doorway. It's appropriate, after all. His mother would be terribly cross if she ever caught him using one of those broken windows. ("Crazy people made those, Harrison," she'd tell him.) Of course, she's dead, so he can theoretically do what he wants. What he wants is to use the door, though, so there's little conflict.  

The streets are bare and silent. Occasionally, an alarm shrilly calls into the air, but no one will answer it. They're more of a nuisance, than anything. Harrison scratches his ear at the horrid sound. That'd be the Donohues'. They moved out last month, anyhow. Good thing, too. They had a daughter Harrison'd play with. Wouldn't want to keep that little angel around a place like this. He hopes they took her to Disney World or Mount Rushmore or some great attraction.  

Harrison stays in his mother's home with the broken windows, everything more or less intact, minus one corpse and plus one ass. It's a nice home. It has two bedrooms and two floors and a kitchen and a bathroom and a half and a porch with a backyard. In Wobegon, everybody has a backyard. After the announcement and scheduling of the Doomsday, the rough shape the house is in isn't unusual, either. 

What _is_ unusual is the woman sitting in his kitchen, spooning a can of cold beans into her mouth. She's on the counter. She's crying hysterically. Food's falling out of her mouth, slick with saliva and tears and bean-juice, staining her t-shirt and her neck.  

Harrison sets down the milk and bag on the table. He puts a hand on his waist, watching her.  

"There's a monster in here," she groans in horror.  

That's not true. Harrison knows for a fact that monsters do not exist outside of a certain subset. There are no monsters in this house. He doesn't say anything about this, though, because that's not how he does things and it's been so long since he's said anything, anyhow, that he's honestly not sure how functional his voice is. 

Instead, he whistles for Jack, so he can account for everybody. When the sound of hooves echoes through the house, he does a mental head count: Jack, himself, stranger. Check. No monsters.  

The woman shrieks when Jack makes his way in, her feet scraping against the counter, which brings Harrison into a bit of a tizzy. He scrubs that countertop, every weekend.  

When he takes a step forward, she screams harder. Harrison is beside himself. It's a complete assault on his senses, painful and horrible, and completely without cause. He clears his throat.  

She stops. Stares at him, then Jack. Keeps looking at Jack. "What is that?" she asks. 

Harrison has to clear his throat again. "Anass," he says. 

"What?" 

He clears his throat yet again. "An. Ass." 

Her upper lip curls into a sneer. "Oh." 

"Donkey," he clarifies.  

" _Oh._ " 

She turns her attention to him, now. "So it's like a little horse?" 

"No." 

"No?" 

"It'sanass." 

"Right." 

"Notahorse." 

"Okay. Fine. It's an…ass." She looks down at the can in her hands. "This your house?" 

"Mymom's." 

"Oh." 

"She'sdead." 

"Oh. Jeez, I'm sorry." 

"It'sfine." 

Setting the can down on the table, she swings her legs over so that she's sitting proper. "Sorry about stealing from you. Thought this place was abandoned." 

Harrison has bigger concerns, primarily Doomsday and its impending impendingness of today, May 31st, and how full his bladder is, so he shrugs.  

Her hand shoots out, "My name's Janice." 

"Hi." 

Janice sweeps a cornrow out of her face. She's a fairly pretty woman. Sturdy. Nice complexion and symmetry. If only she hadn't devastated his countertop. "And you?" 

"What?" 

"Your name, dumbass." 

Harrison shrugs. It makes little difference, these days. He begins to wonder if he ever had one to begin with. (Of course, he did. Once. Back with his mother. Why else would she throw a pitch, and scream, " _Har_ is _son_!" when he did something wrong?) 

Janice gives him a long look, dark eyes straining to meet his, like she's measuring him up. He promptly looks at the desecrated countertop, a helpless, sordid feeling bubbling up in his chest. He _scrubs_ that countertop.  

"The world ends, today," she says. 

"Yes," he says. 

He can feel her gaze intensify. He shifts on his feet. He wants to cave in, but his mother told him not to do that. Crazy people do that.  

"I'd fuck you, considering," she says. 

"Oh," he says. 

It's certainly anxiety, now. She drooled all over it. He has to clean that countertop before Sunday rolls around. He won't eat if the countertop isn't clean. He can't.  

"Why the hell'd you buy milk today?" she says. 

"Thirsty," he says. 

He tries to look back at her. ("Look at me when I talk to you, Harrison!") She wears a look of incredulity. "I see, Mr. Caveman. Well, I suppose that's as good as reason as any." 

I'm not a caveman, he wants to say. I live in a house. I own a domesticated animal. I use the toilet. I'm not a caveman. Instead, he says, "Might as well." 

"Calmed down enough to talk?" 

"No." 

She grunts in reply, looks out the window with a faraway expression. She's thinking. People always get all absent when they think. Finally, she says, "At least we're not gonna die alone. You know? At least we're gonna be with another human." 

Harrison hadn't really thought about that, to be honest. He's not so sure he agrees. Now that Janice is here, this other person, he is consumed with anxieties when he wasn't before. He was fine, by himself. He had Jack. He was fine. So he says nothing. 

She turns her head and tries to catch his eye. "Guy," she says. "Guy, I travelled for four days and nights to get here. And I don't even know why." 

He couldn't tell her. Nobody comes to Wobegon on purpose.  

"You think we were destined to meet?" 

"No," he says. 

"Me neither." She returns to brooding.  

He returns to inspecting the milk. He has a glass, but he can't get it because she's in front of the cabinet and the counter is dirty. His gut twists and groans in protest. He _scrubs_ that countertop.  

"Why do you own an ass?" 

He shrugs. "Might as well." 

"That all you know how to say right?" 

"No." 

She sets her can down. It clatters. His heart hammers. It hurts his ears. It makes them ring something fierce. "You gonna stay here?" 

"I guess." He takes a deep breath or he'll get into hysterics and he says, "Could you please get off of my countertop?" 

She slides off. He hears the buttons of her jeans catch on the laminate tiles. He almost sobs. "Sorry." 

"You're welcome." He scrunches his face, feeling rather stupid. "Oops." 

She squints at him. "You retarded?" 

"Sorta." 

"Oh." 

"Mmhm." 

"Sorry." 

He shrugs. His mother used to tell him not to begrudge people if they said that. ("They're just confused, Harrison," she'd tell him. "People like you don't crop up too often.")  

"No, really, I'm sorry. That was horrible of me." 

"Being disabled isn't a horrible thing to be," he says, "so I'm not offended." 

She looks at him again, long and searching and it makes his skin crawl. "I'm glad we're together, Guy." 

He doesn't know what to say to that because he doesn't want anything rude to come out of his mouth, so he fetches a washcloth out of the drawer and starts wiping down the countertop. He doesn't scrub it, right now. He doesn't want to offend her, even if she is dirty and eats like a child.  

"Do you really need to do that at a time like this?" 

"Yes." He reaches up into the cupboard and gets a glass. "Drink?" 

"Something strong, preferably," she mutters. 

"I only have milk." 

"Milk?" 

He turns to see her befuddled face. It doesn't amuse him, but it doesn't upset him either. "Two percent." 

"Well, what other kind would it be? Ass milk?" 

"So you don't want any?" 

"No." 

He pours himself a glass, nonplussed. He could drink the whole thing if he wanted, but his mother always told him to use glasses. He's most certainly not a caveman, like Janice said. "Harrison," he says. 

"What?" 

"My name. It's Harrison." 

Her lip curls. "You don't look like a Harrison." 

"Does anybody?" 

"I don't suppose so." She turns back to the window. "God, how did I end up here?" 

Harrison pats Jack. Janice isn't his problem. She's her own problem, just like Harrison is his own. He reassures himself of this. He's not fit to care for anybody, right now. Jack has short fur and it's rough if he brushes against it.  

"I live in New York City. You know that place?" 

"Of course," he says. "I watch the Thanksgiving parade on the television every year." 

"What're you doing?" 

"Asses have rough fur. It feels weird on my fingers." 

She runs a hand over her eyes before moving to pat his back.  

"Please don't touch me," he says in a clipped tone.  

"You act real weird, you know that?" 

"You act real feminine, you know that?" 

She gives him an indiscernible look. "That's because I am." 

"Well, there you have it." 

"Oh." 

"Mmhm." 

She sits on the table now. She calls _him_ a caveman! He has chairs. Sittable chairs right in front of her. But no, she has to sit on his table and stare at him and he really can't be expected to enjoy his fatty milk if she continues this. "Do you want something?" he asks. 

"No," she says. 

"Hm." He takes a drink. It coats his mouth in an unfamiliar but not unwelcome sensation. He cracks his jaw open a little, to test the air. It's a nice feeling. It's kind of like when he licks butter. (He doesn't do that often because that's not healthy, but once in a while, you know?) 

"Good?" 

"Satisfactory," he says, clicking his tongue to finish the full effect. He can see where it's sort of like butter. Definitely. No wonder his mother only let him drink skim milk. Most certainly healthier. It's thinner, at the very least. More of a watery consistency than this…whatever consistency it is. Milky? He wouldn't know. It's the thing shaped like itself, he supposes.  

Janice grunts, looking out the window. "Can the world hurry up and just end, already?" 

Harrison seats himself in a chair because he is a civilized, intelligent creature. "Who's to say it's _not?"_  

"Not what?" 

"Hurrying." 

She shrugs. "Now's not the time to get deep about this shit." 

Harrison decides not to argue. He's no Socrates. He heard on the news, a few weeks ago that the casualties around the world had reach a staggering 32% already and the world hadn't even finished its whole ending fiasco yet. Honestly, he doesn't understand why people can't just hold their horses. Even this Janice can't seem to wait for her demise.  

Him? He's content. He always has been. He takes a swig of milk. "I got you a treat." 

She turns to him, arches a brow.  

"I was talking to Jack. My ass." 

"Oh." 

He pulls the Cracker Jacks closer and opens them, relishing in the crackling sound. He usually hates it (hurts his ears), but he'll make an exception for the end of the world. Jack is thrilled. Or, Harrison thinks he is. Asses don't typically smile or express any capacity for gratitude. That's fine with him. He prefers giving to be an uncomplicated affair. 

"Fire raining from the skies yet?" he asks. "Locusts overrunning the streets?" 

"Nope." 

Who knows? Maybe the end of the world is just everything stopping. Maybe there's no fantastical explosion or implosion or magic God trick. Maybe everything just goes to sleep and never wakes up.  

"Well, it's only eight o'clock. I wouldn't get too anxious." 

She turns her neck to look at him again. "How do you know the time?" 

He gestures to the wall. "Put new batteries in it last month." 

"Oh."  

They sit in silence. The only sound is Jack demolishing a bag, which is actually a very loud sound, so the term "silence" is quite relative. Harrison is fine with that arrangement, regardless. His new friend and his ass.  

"You wanna do something?" 

"No," he says serenely.  

She bites her lip, puts her elbows on her thighs. "I don't want to die." 

"It'd happen eventually." 

"How're you so calm about all this?" 

He shrugs. "I like to take things in stride." 

"I can tell." She broods for a few moments, trying to think of something new to say. Harrison wishes she wouldn't. "Feels like it's going to rain, outside." 

He knows. He can feel the wind against his skin. "Maybe it'll be a flood." 

"A Noah's Ark situation?" 

"But with more permanent consequences." 

"God damn it," she shouts. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. I had a _life_. A real life!" 

Harrison doesn't say anything. He read about the stages of grief. His mother went through them once a month, it seemed. He misses her pretty bad, he supposes, if he were to think about it. It's all water under the bridge, though. What's done is done. 

"I was… I was going places, I tell you. I had the fucking fancy education, I had the fucking dream job and the fucking dream husband and I just… I don't…" 

Maybe comparing fatty milk to butter was a tad too presumptuous. He just doesn't know how to adequately describe the sensation.  

"I left because my husband ran off to France and my workplace closed up and… And I just took the train, telling myself I'd go to Chicago but I got off at Syracuse instead and I just went north. I don't know where the hell I was going. Canada?" 

He nods sagely. "Canada is a nice place." 

"How far are we from Canada, Harrison?" 

"Three hours." 

"Jesus." 

"Vermont," he says, nodding to the east, "is a half an hour. That's sort of like Canada. And there," he nods again, this time to the northeast, "lies Maine. About four hours. That pretty much _is_ Canada." 

"I really am in the boondocks, aren't I?" 

"No. Just upstate New York." 

She rubs her face tiredly. "You know, I thought country air was supposed to be cleaner. For some reason it just reeks of more destruction." 

"That's just the cow manure." He pours himself another glass. "And the mill. Though the mill hasn't run in a while. The New Jersey people always used to complain." 

"You don't mean to tell me people actually came up here for vacation. It's a dump!" 

"It's no better or worse than any other place." 

"And I chose it for my tomb." 

He shrugs. "Our local graveyard is only two miles down the road." 

"Whatever." Her shoulders sag.  

"It's as a nice a place as any, I assure you. I've never been to Chicago, but I'm certain _I'd_ rather be here." 

"You don't much care where you are, do you?" 

"No," he says, swishing the last inch of his milk around the glass. Moves differently than skim, too. "No, I suppose I don't." 

"God, I just don't want to die." 

"It's not in your hands. What happens, happens." 

"Very comforting," she sneers. 

"It wasn't meant to be," he says. "It's just the truth." 

She says nothing. She broods some more. Harrison takes the time to further inspect his last drink. Definitely moves different. Skim moves a lot like water. Two percent moves more…deliberately, he thinks and congratulates himself on his word choice. Yes, deliberately. There's something very _deliberate_ about where the milk chooses to splosh about.  

"I should just kill myself now," she says miserably.  

"I wouldn't recommend that." 

"Why the hell not?" 

"Dying's rather messy. I like my kitchen clean." 

She's looking at him. He doesn't return her gaze. He concentrates on the milk. "You're very eccentric," she says mildly.  

"You're very talkative," he says absently.  

"Would you rather I didn't talk?" 

"I don't much care what you do." 

"You are absolutely determined to be satisfied, aren't you?" 

"Is that so wrong?" 

"I suppose not." She's back to looking out the window. "I suppose not." 

"Just sleep on it," Harrison says.  

"Excuse me?" 

"I said," he says, "to sleep on it. If you're that upset, if you're that concerned, sleep on it." 

 _"Sleep on it?"_ she parrots. "But we're gonna die!" 

"All the more reason." 

"I told myself I was gonna go down fighting," she groans. 

"The only people who choose how they die are suicide cases." 

"Thanks." 

"You're welcome." 

"I'm being sarcastic." 

Harrison shrugs.  

Janice curls in on herself, sighing deeply. "I don't want to die," she whispers. 

Harrison says nothing. This isn't much to say to that. He doesn't want to die either, but there isn't much he can do about it. He accepts these things. He compartmentalizes and moves on. There is no moving on from Doomsday, this he knows, but he likes to think that he lives with very little regret. He's not bitter. He hopes the Donohue's daughter is safe.  

He wonders if she's scared, if she knows. He wonders if she made it to Mount Rushmore or Disney World. Every kid should go to some great, fantastical manmade place at some point. Every kid should tremble in wonder and excitement at the feats of modern man. She shouldn't be scared. If she were here, Harrison would set her on his knee and he would tell her why there was nothing to fear. There's no reason, he'd say, to fear that which you cannot control. Just sleep on it. 

"I love you," Janice says.  

"No, you don't," Harrison says.  

"No, I don't," she says, "but I thought it'd be dramatic." 

"Is the end of the world not dramatic enough for you?" 

"No," she says. "No, it isn't. Nothing is. Not even the tragedy of my own death is dramatic enough for me."  

"Must be all that reality tv." 

"You know, I honestly think you might be right." 

Harrison hums. "That's no one's fault." 

"I feel like," she says, "my whole life has been some great chase to emulate some unattainable climatical moment." 

"Isn't that all of us?" 

"I suppose. I suppose I'm nothing spectacular." 

"I didn't say that," he says mildly. "I simply. We all have our problems. We all wish we were more." 

"I'm just desperate to become a caricature of myself, it seems." 

"You're desperate to be better." 

She shrugs. "Is this therapy now?" 

He shrugs back. "No better time, I suppose." 

"You know," she says. "I'm glad I met you." 

"Mm." 

"I guess all I wanted was to not be alone." 

Harrison shrugs. He can't say he shares that sentiment, but then again, he supposes he would be lonely without Jack. Or maybe he'd still be fine. He _feels_ fine, all things considered. "Just sleep," he says.  

"Yeah," she says roughly. "Yeah." 

"There a guest room upstairs." 

She slides off of the table and eyes him. "Are you coming up?" 

"Maybe," he says. "I need to finish this milk. I might just die in the kitchen. The kitchen's a nice place to die." 

"No better or worse than any other place," she says.  

"Now you understand." 

"I suppose I do, Harrison." 

"Yes." He pauses. "Janice?" 

"Yes." 

"I'm glad I met you, too." 

She says nothing. He assumes she made some gesture or expression, and then she clops up the stairs. He eyes Jack. "Some fine mess," he says and his voice sounds strange in his own ears. Jack just blinks at the wall. Animals are truly terrible at empathy, but at least they beat plants or rocks or sociopaths.  

"I better clean that countertop again," he notes, eyes scanning his domain. Jack does nothing. He pats him on the back of his neck.  

"Some fine mess," he sighs and lifts the cup to his lips. 

Some fine mess indeed. And Harrison does not hear the squeal of sirens or the chattering of the news channels or smell the pungent miasma of the paper mill or lift his eyes to the heavens and beg The Lord for one last sight of the purpling clouds that make his heart hurt something fierce in a good way. Harrison Harrington is content, calm, infatuated with his own satisfaction, determined to see it through.  

He supposes he _will_ die in the kitchen. After he cleans the countertop. The countertop really does need a good scrubbing. And the table. That's white linoleum, for goodness's sake, and it'll stain. Might as well have some decorum when he goes. Some sense of normalcy, of human dignity.  

And, naturally, the next day, Janice comes downstairs to find him scrubbing the countertop. "We're not dead," she says flatly.  

"No," he replies. 

"Unless this _is_ the afterlife." 

"It isn't." 

"And how would you know?" she shoots.  

He gestures to the countertop, shrugging. "I didn't sleep." 

"Oh," she says.  

The apocalypse was rather middling, he does have to say. On a scale of false alarm to flaming locusts raining down from space and feasting on the blood of virgins, it ranks at a predictable self-destruction of humanity. Mankind's worst enemy is mankind, after all. That's evolution. It's self-evident. The perils of the top of the foodchain.  

"I suppose," Harrison says. He halts.  

"You suppose what?" Janice eggs him.  

"I suppose," he says, blinking bewilderedly, "that God made a bluff." 

"And we bought it, thus ensuring our own destruction without divine means." 

"You're good at this." 

"I took a Rhetorical Analysis course in college." 

"Mm." Jack nudges at his arm. Harrison runs his fingers through his rough coat, examining the texture.  

"So now what?" Janice says. 

"We live," Harrison says. 

"But what does that entail?" 

"Whatever we want." 

The sun is orange, peering through the shattered glass. Orange in a bright blue sky, the air brittle and stretched thin, wired with life. Strict and focussed and prepared for the wind, for the clouds, for birds that will migrate and planes that may never soar again. The air tastes not of the dense anticipation of last night, but rather refreshment. Contentment, perhaps. Acceptance. Or perhaps Harrison is projecting. He isn't sure.  

"First," he says genially, "I would suggest a trip to the corner market. We need some food. Be sure to avoid the feral people, of course." 

"For milk?" she says with some trace of humor.  

"But naturally."

"Two percent?" 

"Oh no. Skim," he says. "Skim is for health. It's what I'm used to, myself." 

"You'll do anything to return to a routine of some sort, won't you?" 

"Human nature," he says.  

"Mm." 

"It's safe," he says. "It's safe and it's comfortable and that is not so bad. The movies and the books, they try to paint normal life as so dreary, yes? All books are about breaks in routine. Two percent was a break in my routine. Talking was a break in my routine. _You_ were a break in my routine. All interesting, but not real. Not…not. Visceral?" He bobs his head at his word choice. "Visceral. Not tangible. Not actuality.  Not _representative._

"There is nothing," he says, "more romantic than the routine. Nothing more heartbreakingly lovely about humans than our unwillingness to deal with change of any sort. It was the death of us and the life of us and the destruction of our race and the salvation of a select few. We are deer in headlights, all of us. And when we're hit, we trash the car and we lie on our sides, dead to the world, forgotten, a nuisance, a gnat in God's ear."

"Hard to shut you up now that you know you won't die," Janice grunts. 

"I prefer to call it duality in my characterization," he says. "I prefer to call it hidden depths. Really, I am quite simply very enthralled by my own voice." 

"It's a good voice," she notes. 

"Thank you," he says.

"I love you," she says.  

"You don't mean that," he says. 

"I know," she says.  

Harrison rubs the back of his neck tiredly. "Milk," he says. "Milk first, and then sleep." 

"And then what?" she asks, voice trembling. "The same thing over again, the next day? And the next?" 

"Yes," he says simply. "Until we figure out something else to do." 

"I want to travel the world," she says. "I don't want your romantic routine. I want a…a life without expectation. I want to soar above all this shit and leave it behind." 

"You also want your husband back," he says, "and your job, and your flat. But first, milk." 

"Milk," she echoes. 

"Milk," he says. 

"Okay."

 Jack stares at them as they shuffle out of the house. Harrison glances at the broken windows, at the chipped paint, thinks of his dead mother bleeding out in the kitchen, at how filthy the countertops had been, and lets his feet carry him.  

He moves and he relishes in the move. He is content. 


End file.
